9 Market Research Tools That Every Analyst Should Explore

Conducting market research likely feels impossible if you don’t have the right market research tools. Finding the right assets that fit your needs can be a battle, especially when there is an endless number of resources available, and even more being released regularly. On top of that, there are new breakthroughs in your market every day. To ensure that you are gathering up-to-date information across your entire market, you want to make sure that you’re utilizing resources that have different objectives such as trend tracking, social media and keyword monitoring, survey capabilities, and audience analysis. Here’s our roundup of some great market research tools that will help you get the most out of your research.

The US Census has an endless amount of knowledge about people, places, companies, and trends. More specifically, the American FactFinder is an easy way to drill into the information you really want. A beneficial part of this tool is the Guided Search, which will take you step by step through the system to get the most relevant data about your market.

Pew Research Center is a great tool for tracking key market trends. Pew gathers data on politics, media, news, social trends, and more. This tool is highly important for anyone conducting market research because it’s a one stop shop for market research data.

Google Alerts is one of the best free market research tools you should be utilizing. With Google Alerts, you can customize email digests with the information you care most about. You can choose search terms, frequency, sources, and more, to get the best results on virtually any topic.

If you have a Google AdWords account (if you don’t, you can make one for free), you should be using the Google Keyword Planner. This tool allows you to conduct basic keyword research, but it also allows you to discover new keywords and get a better understanding of how your audience searches for information within your market.

Who better to tell you about your customers and your market than your customers themselves? SurveyMonkey is a tool that allows you to create surveys, which are perfect for getting answers to the questions you really want to know. Asking your customers or prospects key questions will add a lot of value to your perspective on the market. Plus, SurveyMonkey specifically has a survey type for market research!

Quora is a hub of market research and consumer intelligence. You can see what people are asking, what people think about certain topics, and how the people in your market interact with one another. The questions and answers on Quora are so robust, you can see what people are already talking about, or you can pose your own questions and gain specific market research.

MakeMyPersona is a tool from HubSpot that allows you to create your buyer personas by answering a string of questions based on existing market research, and can also prompt you to find out more about your market. This is a beneficial tool for understanding your ideal users (buyers) and leveraging what you know about them to give your buyers a better experience.

Keyhole is one of the best social tracking tools to gather market research. You can track keywords, hashtags, users, and URLs, across social media platforms. The tool also digs deeper and shows you key influencers, related topics, top websites, and more. This tool is your all-in-one social media tracker!

Crayon is a platform that lets you track, analyze, and act on everything happening outside the four walls of your company. Pulling from more than 7M sources, Crayon provides you with the most robust and up-to-date information on your competition.

Utilizing some, or all of these market research tools, will greatly benefit your ability to gather market intelligence. Do you have another favorite tool? Let us know in the comments below!